Solutions for A17

G

gomoha

New member
Experience is busted.

Before when you wanted to level mining you would go mine, if you wanted to shoot better you would go shoot and if you needed extra points you would sell junk to the trader. The leveling system wasn't perfect but it was better. It wasn't more balanced but it did what it had to. Now if you want xp the only real way to level is to kill zombies which is fine in some cases but in most it's pretty silly. Now if I want to mine better i have to make myself 10 campfires and let em burn till i have a bunch of witches attracting zombies so I can grind levels. There should be more xp given when building things or when harvesting.

Also, another issue i have is with stamina, you just don't have enough. ''Running'' without any points put into stamina will deplete your gauge in seconds and if you have armor it will take even less. You run very slowly and can't run very far... I'm pretty out of shape and i have much more stamina than our visibly fit character. Either movement speed should be higher or you should run much longer.

 
I'm pretty out of shape and i have much more stamina than our visibly fit character. Either movement speed should be higher or you should run much longer.
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Mmmh.. one hour = 2.08 minutes. That 15 second sprint is 7.5 mins in real life..

... still faster? ;x

 
Organic leveling was a very refreshing aspect of this game pre-A17. Abandoning it was a mistake. The Skill Menu is a lazy, uncreative, crutch of a feature. RPG's since the dawn of time have this click and spend points thing. TFP proved you could level skills with actions and find recipes. So why have it all? It was so much better. I think people complained it was "grindy", like mining a bunch was grindy, etc. But like you pointed out, only being able to kill zombies for XP made this grindier than ever before. I have to kill legions of zombies, so that I can get better at .... electronics? No, bring back organic leveling, skills/perks tied to actions, and searching for recipes again. And get rid of the Skill Menu; it's too tempting to rely on it, and move game features from the world and into it. I don't know what they were thinking.

 
Do you remember that you could mine all night in A16, earn points and put them in looting or whatever you want right?
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Sure, of course. But mining also greatly improved by doing it, also your athletics; in the current alpha your character NEVER learns to do things any better. TFP couldn't decide how they wanted to do the mechanic previously, so they had 1 foot in each world; some things level organically, others you spend points. I say, link all skills and perks to actions, and scrap the spending points thing. It can be done, they've already done it. But they abandoned this novel feature in order to revert back to 1990's style RPG's for some reason.

 
I too liked the organic levelling where it worked, in things you actually need to do repeatedly, melee, mining, guns, and could realistically expect improving from doing.

Where it didn't work IMO were

- scavenging (loot quality wise, speed is fine I guess) the loot should be there or not, regardless of who opens the container. Limit loot quality to location/container type and - if you insist - days played. Although the "game stage update" for containers feels wrong as well, maybe ok for ammo counts and such, but not loot type or quality.

- crafting, making and dumping hundreds of stone axes to get a better one was just .. terrible. This is where those "magazines" could have a nice place.. the DIY types reading all sort of things and learning tidbits over time to improve.

Skill trees could then be reserved for more .. peculiar things. Strong enough? Buy that skull popper perk. Agile enough? Climb those walls. These are good examples of skill points to invest, they make the game feel different and can be somewhat logically limited.

 
theFlu, I do agree with you there. Athletics, Mining, Blunt Weapons, etc, those felt pretty good with the organic leveling. But there were indeed instances where the organic leveling was too grindy or just downright silly. You nailed the "inventory full of stone axes" right on the head. But I still think they should've just improved it, not abandon it. Maybe getting better at certain of these grindy/silly things could have been a function of learning or reading, or completing quests for NPC's and they teach you a "trade secret". There are plenty of things they could've done to mitigate the downsides, yet keep the immersive experience, I feel.

Even the perks you mention, like exploding heads, etc., could be a function of, maybe a 1% chance to proc from scoring blows to the head. Or headshots with guns, or dismemberments with blades. If you want this perk, then focus on bashing skulls (or what have you). And once you get this "headcrusher" perk the first time, then subsequent procs of the perk improve it by a level, and so on. So they could've done a lot, and left the Skill Menu out of the game. I am willing to compromise of course, I just really miss the organic leveling, it's not the same game without it.

 
my feeling is that your basic attributes should level slowly based on what actions you do.

Shooting a gun or bow, looting would slowly level perception.

Mining, melee, walking around encumbered would slowly level strength.

Jumping, sneaking, taking damage on light armor would level agility.

Buying, selling and interacting with NPC's would level charisma.

eating, drinking, taking medicines or damage on heavy armor would raise fortitude.

Then keep the rest of the levelling system the same as currently. I think that would return it to the organic feeling A16 had whilst still giving us the nice perk system of A17.

 
Who knows, maybe A17 was an introduction to merging "gaining skill by doing" with the current skill system (which needed introduction nad mashing it up). Recently checked the XMLs and seen a commented section that said perhaps you could mod in "learning by doing", but that requires investigation.

I personally would love to have a system of learning most if not all crafting recipes through books or magazines you find in POIs. Advanced things would require more than one magazine - so imagine levels for crafting and you gain more through reading only. Something similar is in Project Zomboid and i think it feels cool.

Add to that an abundance of various loot which you can find everywhere and do dismantle to basic materials, including various books, regular kitchen/toilet/house items, so many more clothes, etc. Add to that "learning by doing" and we got a great game!

 
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